


there's much and more i wanted to tell you

by rottedflowerpits



Series: Drabbles/Tumblr requests [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Hmm..., M/M, Pining, Post-War, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Reflection, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 06:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14278638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rottedflowerpits/pseuds/rottedflowerpits
Summary: “Some war, huh?”Keith snorts, but it's the kind of noise that doesn't leave much for interpretation. He's older, worn, ragged; and Shiro nods with the same disdain he feels in his own bones.“Yeah. Some war.”





	there's much and more i wanted to tell you

“Some war, huh?” 

Keith snorted, but it was the kind of noise that didn't leave much for interpretation. He was older, worn, ragged, and Shiro nodded with the disdain he felt in his own bones. 

“Yeah. Some war.” 

Earth was the last place Keith wanted to return to. It wasn't like he had to stay, but there were certain obligations. Some familial, some erring on the lovelorn way of things. Iverson was dead and so was the Garrison, leaving the desert he'd called home for so damned long empty and cold and ringing out in nothingness. A whole lot of nothingness, truth be told. 

Once Blue had returned to the sky, the ground no longer hummed with that something ethereal. There remained no more promises of something out of his reach, just barely at his fingertips. No more reassurances that what he'd longed for would someday return to him. 

There was a lot of nothing, and he scuffed his boot against the worn pavement in irritation. 

“There's always time to make your own path after everything's over, you know.” 

“That requires thinking ahead.” 

“And boy, do I know how much you hated doing that.” 

Keith laughed, ruefully stuffing his hands in his pockets as he looked out across the horizon. It hadn't changed very much since the war, but the sky was a little different, a little darker, than what Keith was used to. The entire corner of the universe that Earth was tucked away into _was_ darker, devoid of anything the cosmos had to offer. How they'd managed to live millennia as a species contorting gods and whimsical fantasies out of so few stars baffled him. 

There was so much more to see, and yet, there had been so much more to be taken from them. 

Keith bit his lip, his gaze sweeping over the faux post-apocalyptic landscape. The nothingness ate at his skin, and the decrepit buildings that once held the innards of a somewhat-functioning town gazed at him with gouged, windowless eyes. 

Ghosts of what had been lingered in the darkening corners, and Keith gazed at them with sorrowful contempt. The single road that cut through the buildings only served as a faint reminder of being stuck at the side, on the curb, told to wait five minutes that ebbed into an hour as his father talked the time away. 

Keith never did really mind; when his dad drowned the last drops of another drink, smoked another cigarette and waved goodbye to the lady behind the counter, he was usually in a good mood. In a good mood and with a something small for his boy. 

It was routine. It was habit. 

Keith had just never really gotten over the fact he'd been left there for good, you know?

The memory boiled across his brain, and he turned his gaze back to the skyline. He rubbed at his temple, swearing softly underneath his breath. 

“You remind me of those mountains, you know?” 

Shiro said it as casually as one would point out the weather, like what he'd just said wouldn't throw anyone for a loop. Keith blinked, looking to him, mild annoyance at not understanding the comparison picking his eyebrow up to his hairline. 

“Huh.”

Shiro laughed, with the kind of pressure and force that made him toss his head back. It was a wild sound that not even the wind could carry away, a noise that had gotten them in trouble many a night when they thought they were sneaky and smart. Oh, to be seventeen and in love again. 

“Kind of jagged on the outside. Irregular. But-”

“Did you just call me irregular?” Keith feigned an offended appearance, crossing his arms and heaving a haughty laugh. 

Shiro backpedaled, waving his hands in front of himself, before gracing the little forelock at the front of his head with the presence of his hand. “God, no. Just...I don't know. Something perfect in how irregular and unpredictable they are. It takes a lot to really get to what makes you, you. I don't know. That was a bit of a shitty metaphor.” 

Shiro's laugh tumbled off into apologetic silence. But Keith shook his head, laughing quietly. He got it. He knew what Shiro meant. It was the dumb, infatuated, sappy feeling that made you say stupid shit. He leaned against Shiro's side and elbowed it, knocking his head back against the man's shoulder and forcing a pillow of it. 

“Yeah, well, you remind me of the space between the stars.” 

It was Shiro's turn to give pause, to still in the chilling night wind, before he slowly wrapped his arm around Keith's shoulders. 

“Oh?”

“You really make it seem like there's nothing there, but there is. There's a whole universe there, covered up behind everything, like you're hiding behind it. Fairly complicated, next to what you let yourself on to be.”

Shiro cleared his throat. It was obvious he was both impressed and taken aback. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” 

Keith smiled. He always did like having the upper hand in things. 

“That just makes what I said sound _really_ shitty now.” Shiro chuffed, swiping at the corner of his mouth. Keith sneaked a quick glance, noting the frown lines. The moon was full and, thankfully, illuminated the ground before Keith. But that same nothingness was just all the more apparent to him now. In the distance, a coyote howled, but, much like Keith, it operated on its own terms.

“I really shouldn't be comparing you to Earthly means. You really aren't cut from the same stone as the rest of us.” 

Keith narrowed his eyes, the pun about to make him jab Shiro in the side. But he noted Shiro's stiffened posture, the way his cocked head just screamed _serious business._ Keith cleared his throat, crossing his arms and staring hard at the ground before them. 

“People like you just don't happen. Some black magic fuckery must have happened with your mother's uterus to make you. Pretty sure your father summoned something into his dick-” 

Keith _did_ hit Shiro that time, a curled, sideways fist against the brunt of Shiro's muscled pectoral. Shiro laughed, rubbing at the spot absently. Light and playful, yet always with the hidden intent to actually injure. Keith felt a little bad. 

“For real, though. You're just...inexplicable.” 

Keith mulled the words over in his head. He supposed that was about as good of a metaphor as any; after all, no one had really wanted to go through the required effort to grow close to someone. Especially someone like him, at the end of the day. 

It wasn't something he could really blame on others, though. He'd never wanted to do the same and extend the courtesy the other way. Ever since he'd been left behind on that dusty road, he'd promised himself he didn't need anyone. Not even the lady behind the counter, who'd taken him to the garrison. 

_“It's what your pa wanted.”_

He never did say anything to her. He didn't say much of anything to anyone. The garrison had been his out, his goal, his something. Shiro had been his surprise, his love, his undoing. Despite Keith's first initial reactions, his first intrusive thoughts, Shiro had grown on him like a kind of cancerous mole. Under his skin and with the threat to keep growing, growing, growing, until it had suffocated the light from Keith's rotting eyes. 

It was just ironic that it was Shiro's urn he held. 

Keith sighed heavily, noting Mars's presence in the sky, kissing Venus's aura. The moon's halo had brightened, leaving nothing to hide. Keith could hear the whispers of what was, behind him, on that dusty road. 

There had been a lot, and all of it to lose. Keith had never thought he'd see the day when he'd think back on those nights, wistful for the chance to go back. He never would have guessed relativity of spacetime and warmed cosmic dust would fuck them over this badly, and he...he never would have thought something so simple, something as easy as a knife's blade in Shiro's heart would take him out. 

It was ridiculous, and Keith laughed, bitterly, as he wrenched the lid from the urn. The glowing Altean lights snuffed themselves out, leaving the trenches they carved through the gunmetal of the memorial object devoid of life. Just like its occupant. 

Keith tossed it into the air as hard as he could manage. 

He'd never thought he'd miss lingering puberty. He'd never thought he'd miss being sent into convenience stores along endless highways to steal cigars and cigarettes, the occasional candy bar. He'd never thought he'd miss the cold home of a bunker. He'd never thought he'd miss being pressed to another, sweating, snoring body in a tiny-as-fuck bed. 

He'd never thought he'd miss it all, he thought, as he watched Shiro dissipate in the gusty wind. 

But with all things considered, sadly, that was then, and this was now.

**Author's Note:**

> "Yeah, I'm totally gonna work on that funny vampire au I've been wanting to work on!" 
> 
> Said me, last week. 3am me had different plans and wanted to get this out first, apparently. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
